Feeding a need to read
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E-mail China Daily, November 28, 2019
Walking around the library, visitors can see glass pillars featuring brick-shaped patterns, and arch-shaped bookshelves that resemble the city wall gates. The library is sectioned into spaces with varied functions, including a picture book space for children and a "cultural square" area for readers to sit alongside each other.
"I hope that Nanjing's Xiaosong Library will be not only a static library, but also a center for cultural exchange, and a community for art and literature enthusiasts to exchange views," Gao says.
Ye Zhaoyan, a writer born and raised in Nanjing, says at the opening ceremony that Nanjing is a city that values books, so it is fitting that Xiaosong Library has been set up in this newly developed urban area.
"In the past, in the era of material scarcity, there was always a Xinhua Bookstore in the city center ... But now that the economy is prospering, this area is no longer lacking in cafes or teahouses, but it really does need a library. So, Xiaosong Library really has come along at the right moment," Ye says.
Ye and Chiang are now both members of the library's "reading companion" program that invites celebrity writers, scholars, artists and scientists to join the public welfare platform and promote reading. Sharing sessions from the reading program-the first one presented by Gao himself-will continue to be hosted regularly at the libraries.
Before he set up the two branches of the library, Gao had been the curator of Beijing's Za Library since 2015, which boasts a vast collection of precious books, periodicals and manuscripts.
Earlier this year, Za Library was invited by Harvard University to showcase some of its most treasured items at an exhibition at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies in conjunction with the Harvard-Yenching Library.
Some of these exhibits are currently on display at the Nanjing Xiaosong Library, with a focus on folklore material that helps to chart China's modern history and the changes to people's daily lives.
Running through Feb 10, Nanjing is the first stop on the exhibition's national tour before it moves on to Xiaosong Library in Hangzhou.
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